The Offense Epidemic: How to Defeat Satan’s End-Times Weapon
If you’ve been a Christian for any length of time, you’ve probably heard someone mention the End Times.
Or perhaps “argue about the End Times” would be more accurate. It seems everyone has a different opinion about this era in history. But Jesus said something in Matthew 24:4 that most people skim over: “Take heed that no man deceive you.”
Jesus warned that deception would be a big part of living in the End Times, yet no one seems to be watching for it. In today’s political climate, government leaders, news pundits, and others gain power by deceiving the masses through manufactured offense. They politicize science and issues of race, gender, and sexual orientation to create narratives of offense. But they’re not actually concerned about such things. They’re only trying to create division and strife amongst the people so they can usurp power.
Though there is godly division between faith in Jesus and unbelief, right and wrong, good and evil, Christ and the spirit of anti-Christ; God did not send Jesus to separate people on the basis of race, social-economic status, political affiliation, or gender (see Matthew 10:34–39). Yet, Jesus said in the last days, “Many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many” (Matthew 24:5). In other words, the deception of offense would work. False saviors—whether individuals or government entities—would be presented to “rescue” culture from threat of war, famine, and disease. And people would be gullible enough to believe them. But Jesus said:
See that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines, and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places (Matthew 24:6–7).
As followers of Christ, we cannot freak out every time there is an earthquake or we hear of a new virus or coming plague. The world freaks out like these things should not be happening. But Jesus told us earthquakes would occur. He said there would be famine and pestilence, plagues and disease. These are all signs of the End Times. Whether you’ve realized it or not, COVID-19 falls under these warnings. Our world’s system has used COVID-19 to instill fear and usurp freedom. But Jesus told us not to let these things trouble us. We need to respond to these occurrences in faith, not fear or worry. We need to recognize the unreasonable responses to this virus (which have ranged from shutting down our economy to closing schools and placing citizens on house arrest) for what they are—tactics to collect power for the elite and convince people that government can be their “savior.”
Yet Jesus said these things are just the “beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:8). He continued: “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake” (Matthew 24:9).
Nobody wants to read that. And honestly, it’s still hard for me to wrap my mind around, but one day, nations will hate those who love Jesus. They’ll hate those who honor the Bible. They’ll hate those who do good and love truth. And many Christians will be killed for His name’s sake. We may be experiencing censorship and de-platforming right now, but that is only the beginning of sorrows. Just think. If people offended by the truth can make us socially disappear today, why would we think that one day they won’t also try to make us physically disappear? And it all goes back to offense. People are offended by God’s Word. They are offended by His promise of healing and protection. They don’t want to rely on something they cannot see or prove. They don’t want to acknowledge God or His Word, for then they would have to submit to it.
But God’s people are called to a kingdom mindset. While we are in the world, we cannot be of it (see John 17:6–19). We cannot allow the politics of anger and hatred to offend us. Jesus said, in these last days, “Shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another” (Matthew 24:10). And then He repeated the warning that many false prophets would arise to deceive the multitudes (see Matthew 24:11). Often, when we think of false prophets, we expect them to rise out of the church. But a false prophet is anyone who claims that he or she can save the world. It’s the spirit of anti-Christ—a false Christ, a false solution.
Jesus went on to say, “And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved” (Matthew 24:12–13). Notice the two signs Jesus gave believers of the End Times. He said many would be offended, and love would “wax cold.” The Greek word translated as love in this verse is agapē. This is God’s kind of love. And according to First Corinthians 13:4–5, agape suffers long and is kind. It doesn’t envy or boast. It is not proud or rude. Agape love is not selfish, self-promoting, or easily angered. It is not the kind of “love” the world promotes. But it is the kind of love Jesus said Christians would allow to “wax cold” in their hearts.
Instead of nurturing love and enduring to the end, in the last days, Christians, like the world, will take offense at everything. May that not be said of us! Let us instead be inspired by the words of Philippians to let “your love…abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment; that ye may approve things that are excellent; that ye may be sincere and without offence till the day of Christ” (Philippians 1:9–10). Paul encouraged the church at Philippi to not let their love wax cold. He charged them to love others and guard their hearts from offense.
Just as then, the only way for us to stay free of offense today is to abound in God’s kind of love. First John 4:8 says that “God is love,” so knowing Him is the only way to know true love. This means that our ability to love grows as our relationship with God grows. God’s kind of love is a foreign concept to this world. It’s a foreign concept to our flesh. Love is not an emotion or a feeling. (Though it can affect our emotions—even to the point of healing the hurt created by offense.) Love is a choice. We show love when we choose to do the right thing. We abound in love when we choose God’s way over our feelings. Paul encouraged us all to be sincere in this: To not let our emotions rule our decisions, but to choose to keep our hearts free from offense and aligned with the truth until the day of Christ. Then we will be “filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God” (Philippians 1:11). Though the world gives into offense, when our love abounds in knowledge and judgement, we are free from offense and filled with the fruit of righteousness!
Offended By the Truth
Early in ministry, I mistakenly thought everyone wanted truth. How naïve I was! Many people—national media included—do not care about truth. They only care about what will advance their agenda or position. In some cases, they are actually afraid of the truth and do everything they can to hide it. They are people “who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18 ESV). It was a rude awakening for me when I realized how biased the national news media had become, and worse, when I discovered that multitudes of people in the church regularly rejected truth. Peter wrote about this in his second letter.
Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in [Zion] a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on him shall not be confounded. Unto you therefore which believe he is precious: but unto them which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to them which stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed. (1 Peter 2:6–8).
God’s Word is a precious stone to those who believe. But to the disobedient, it is a rock of offense that causes people to stumble. The Word puts obstacles in the path of unbelief. Consider tithing as an example. I’ve never had a tither get offended when I preach about tithing (or “first fruits” as it is spoken of throughout scripture). Those who are enlightened know that we don’t belong to ourselves (see 1 Corinthians 6:19–20). Everything we have, everything we are, belongs to God. So when the Word says, “Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse,” and, “Honor the Lord with thy substance, and with the first fruits of all thine increase” (Malachi 3:10; Proverbs 3:9), those who love Jesus count that Word as precious and choose to obey it— even when they don’t fully understand it. It’s the people who don’t want to tithe that stumble at this Word. They become offended, looking for any excuse—whether people’s misrepresentation of scripture or a preacher’s abuse of prosperity—to justify their disobedience.
I will be the first to admit that there have been abuses in sharing on the subject of prosperity. Many teachers still misrepresent tithing, incorrectly attaching God’s wrath to a failure to tithe. We are no longer under the Old Testament law of tithing that curses those who do not tithe. But the principle of tithing, which came before the law and is still applicable after the law, is in effect (see Genesis 14:18–20). This principle attaches a blessing to tithing. Does that make the word we preach a “prosperity gospel?” No. There is only one gospel—the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. But part of that gospel message is that God wants us to prosper. If that offends you, it’s because you are disobedient to the Word and have stumbled at the truth. Here’s another example. Only those who quit church get offended when you quote Hebrews 10:25: “Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.”
I could go on and on about offense in the church. But disobedience and offense are not limited to the church. Try sharing God’s Word in our culture. You will be attacked by the national media. You will be censored by Silicon Valley tech gods and excommunicated from social media platforms. With few exceptions, anyone in power who speaks truth—even twenty-five percent of the time—is destroyed by our culture. Our culture hates truth. People don’t want to know what God’s Word says, because then they’d have no excuse for disobeying it.
You see, truth is not relative. It’s not something you or I can personally determine. There is no “your truth” or “my truth.” Morality is not subject to popular belief or “cultural evolutions.” It cannot be determined by majority vote. Truth is absolute. It is eternally established by God. It can only be discovered and submitted to by us. When Jesus stood before Pontus Pilate, Pilate asked if He was a king. Jesus explained that though He was king, He came to the world for one purpose—to bear witness to the truth. And “…everyone who is of the truth hears My voice” (John 18:37). Pilate didn’t like that answer. “What is truth?” he asked (John 18:38). How sad. A high-ranking political official was staring Truth in the face and couldn’t recognize it. Yet how many recognize truth today? Most are offended just being in the proximity of truth.
